While describing SIGNIFICANT NATURAL RESOURCE AREAS in the Citywide Dog Policy as "small fragments of original natural communities" and "small, fragmented, and isolated," Recreation and Park Department records show that SNRA's are expected to encompass as much as 1,500 acres -- nearly one-half of San Francisco's parklands -- including such popular off-leash areas as McLaren Park, Bernal Hill, Glen Canyon, and our last remaining city-owned beach (located at Sharp Park, Pacifica).

RPD is attempting to make policy without having first mapped, quantified, and made public the extent of Natural Areas. Beginning with a mandate to preserve "small fragments" of San Francisco's true indigenous ecology, the Natural Areas Program is attempting to annex most of our undeveloped parklands and take them out of recreational use. SNRA's are defined so broadly -- including corridors, buffers, and "areas that have the potential to be restored" -- that virtually any area could be designated as an SNRA.

RPD's Citywide Dog Policy would make SNRA's off-limits to dogs, on or off-leash, leaving us with less than 1 (one) percent of our 3,500 acres of parklands available for off-leash recreation and as much as 75 percent of our parklands completely off-limits to dogs.

Please help us reclaim San Francisco's last city-owned beach and preserve recreational use on the city's 1,500 acres of undeveloped, but well-used, parklands.